The exciting and fun vacation that I took during the Christmas break had two parts to it. I’m going to write about both of these parts, but I won’t tell you the whole story. I’ll just write about the most fun thing I did in each part:
The first part of my vacation was in India, specifically Madras in the state of Tamil Nadu. Here I spent time with my mother’s side of the family, with my cousins, uncle, aunt, cousins and grandparents. We had a lot of fun together, listening to music and sharing stories about our schools. When we were not doing those things, we just sat around the house, lazing around. Every evening we went swimming at the Olympic-sized pool at the Madras Gymkhana Club, one of the oldest clubs in India. We also went to the Marina beach – the second-longest beach in the world. It was very crowded! At the beach my brother and I sharpened our skills as marksmen and shot some balloons. The system works like this. There are a hundred or so balloons on a stand and you have 10 shots. After you pick your targets, you pick up your rifle and hope for the best. My brother and I are both pretty good at it, and both of us got 8 balloons out of 10. One of the best parts about the vacation was getting new books. They were three of them. The Odin Mission, Tormod: A Templar’s Apprentice and Alex Rider: Crocodile Tears. The absolute best part was spending time with my grandparents. I hadn’t been able to visit them since our last trip almost a year ago. So for me, that was the most important part. Family.

The second part of my vacation took place in Thailand. We landed in Bangkok where we spent a few days. On the first day, we visited the Royal Grand Palace. That evening, we celebrated my mother’s birthday with a dinner cruise in an old converted teak rice barge down the Chao Phraya River. It was very beautiful seeing all the monuments, buildings and Buddhist Wats (temples) all lit up. We also visited several other wats in the city – Wat Pho, Wat Arun etc. For my parents they were interesting, but for my brother and me, they were just plain boring. Wat Pho however, was interesting because it had a giant resting statue of a sleeping Buddha inside a massive chamber which was beautifully cast from metal and covered in gold leaf. The feet were meticulously crafted with mother-of-pearl inlay work. The intricate designs told the story of the Buddha’s life. We took a day trip to Kanchanburi to see the famous bridge on the river Kwai, which was constructed by over a 100,000 P.O.W’s of the Japanese during World War 2. Because of brutal conditions and overwork, 15,000 P.O.W’s met their deaths while at work. This is why it is called the Death Railway. Afterwards, in 1945, the bridge was bombed to smithereens by Allied bombers but was reconstructed as a monument and a tribute to those who died building the Death Railway. Another exciting we did was go to a tiger temple. The temple was only inhabited by just monks until a wounded boar wandered in. The monks nursed it back to health and released it. It soon became a haven for unwanted pets, wounded livestock and orphaned animals. I got to hug a 400 pound tiger in that temple, and I could feel its sheer power as it slept. We also went to the mountain town called Chiang Mai, and after two days there we went back to Bangkok. In Bangkok we saw the movie Avatar in 3D, and it’s one of the best movies I have seen in a long time. The movie tells the story of crippled marine Jake Sully, who is sent to the moon of Pandora. The indigenous populace, the Na’vi, won’t let the corporation Jake works for take minerals from Pandora so Jake, in his Na’vi avatar, is sent to infiltrate. But Jake falls in love with the princess of the clan and fights back in a desperate battle against the corporation.

So there was my vacation. It was very fun, and I hope to have other memorable vacations just like this one.